1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an item of disposable laboratory apparatus, namely, pipette tips, and in particular to a device for loading and reloading the racks and boxes and related devices used to hold pipette tips for ready dispensing and usage in laboratory procedures.
2. Description of the Related Art
Pipette tips (PT's) and related disposable labware items are used in great quantities in both clinical and industrial laboratories. One way of distributing PT's is in bulk form (1000 tips in a bag, for example). These "bulk" tips can then be manually loaded into storage racks for use in a lab. This is a tedious, time-consuming task typically done by highly paid laboratory personnel. To avoid the loading process, lab personnel may purchase preloaded disposable racks. The conventional configuration of the tip delivery system is a rack having 96 tips arranged in a row and column format (8 rows.times.12 columns) within a closable box that can be placed in an autoclave or other sterilizing apparatus. These racks are normally sold in cases of ten storage racks, providing 960 tips per case.
In recent years, manufacturers have been under pressure to reduce the cost of disposable goods and, for ecological reasons, the volume of such waste. Many manufacturers and distributors have instituted recycling programs to salvage some of the waste generated by the huge volume of single use racks and boxes. Some have produced special packaging in an attempt to reduce waste. One such design features a reusable box with a disposable rack-insert. This rack-insert is typically a plastic tray having 96 tips arranged in an 8 row by 12 column format. The boxes combined with the rack-inserts are known as "stack racks" because they can be nested one on top of another and they now account for the bulk of current usage. A disadvantage of this manner of usage is that fitting individual rack-inserts in corresponding stack racks can be cumbersome. This design reduces the amount of packaging, but it does little to reduce manufacturing cost because the assembly time is unchanged for the manufacturer, since each tray must be loaded with 96 tips, as was previously done.
Until now, efforts to eliminate single use racks and boxes have produced less than desirable results. In particular, all of the prior art designs still rely on either preloaded disposable trays or the cumbersome method of reloading the trays by hand.